Watts Wacker

Ryan Mathews

“As usual these two future-finders have their fi ngers on the pulse of what’s happening--and what we need to know about. In every business, in every organization, the seven most important words these days are: ‘But wait! A story goes with it!’ You need to read this book to fi nd out why.” —Alan Webber, Co-founder,Fast Companymagazine “A great story sparks our imagination, challenges us to think, and resonates with our collective conscience. Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker’s story about telling stories does exactly this. It is an essential guidebook for capturing and conveying the essence of corporate identities and enriching brands.” —Paul A. Laudicina, Managing Officer and Chairman of the Board, A.T. Kearney Storytelling is the universal human activity.Every society, at every stage of history, has told stories–and listened to them intently, passionately. Stories are how people tell each other who they are, where they came from, how they’re unique, what they believe. Stories capture their memories of the past and their hopes for the future. Stories are one more thing, too: They are your most powerful, most underutilized tool for competitive advantage.Whether you know it or not, your business is already telling stories. What’s Your Story? will help you take control of those stories and make them work for you. Legendary business thinkers Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker reveal how to craft an unforgettable story…create the back story that makes it believable…make sure your story cuts through today’s relentless bombardment of consumer messages…and gets heard, remembered, and acted on. THE TEN FUNCTIONS OF STORYTELLING Discovering what stories can do for your business THE ABOLITION OF CONTEXT Telling stories when the past no longer defines the future THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT STORY THEMES Leveraging themes your audiences will understand and believe APPLIED STORYTELLING 101 Storytelling for your industry, your company, your brand, and you MASTERING YOUR STORYTELLER’S TOOLBOX Making your stories more compelling, more believable, and downright unforgettable Use Storytelling to Gain Powerful Competitive Advantage in Today’s Increasingly Skeptical Marketplace Leverage the incredible power of storytelling in marketing, sales, investor relations, recruitment, change management,and more Indispensable techniques for every CxO, entrepreneur, and marketing, sales, and communications executive The latest breakthrough book from best-selling futurists Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker

Storytelling to Move Markets, Audiences, People, and Brands

What's Your Story?

Fred Crawford

The Undiscovered Consumer . . .and the Mistake of Universal Excellence What do customers really want? And how can companies best serve them? Fred Crawford and Ryan Mathews set off on what they describe as an "expedition into the commercial wilderness" to find the answers. What they discovered was a new consumer -- one whom very few companies understand, much less manufacture products for or sell products or services to. These consumers are desperately searching for values, a scarce resource in our rapidly changing and challenging world. And increasingly they are turning to business to reaffirm these values. As one consumer put it: "I can find value everywhere but can't find values anywhere." Crawford and Mathews's initial inquiries eventually grew into a major research study involving more than 10,000 consumers, interviews with executives from scores of leading companies around the world, and dozens of international client engagements. Their conclusion: Most companies priding themselves on how well they "know" their customers aren't really listening to them at all. Consumers are fed up with all the fuss about "world-class performance" and "excellence." What they are aggressively demanding is recognition, respect, trust, fairness, and honesty. Believing that they are still in a position to dictate the terms of commercial engagement, businesses have bought into the myth of excellence -- the clearly false and destructive theory that a company ought to be great at everything it does, that is, all the components of every commercial transaction: price, product, access, experience, and service. This is always a mistake because "the predictable outcome [is] that the company ends up world-class at nothing; not well-differentiated and therefore not thought of by consumers at the moment of need." Instead, Crawford and Mathews suggest that companies engage in Consumer Relevancy, a strategy of dominating in one element of a transaction, differentiating on a second, and being at industry par (i.e., average) on the remaining three. It's not necessary for businesses to equally invest time and money on all five attributes, and their customers don't want them to. Imagine the confusion if Tiffany & Co. started offering deep discounts on diamonds and McDonald's began selling free-range chicken and tofu. The Myth of Excellence provides a blueprint for companies seeking to offer values-based products and services and shows how to realize the commercial opportunities that exist just beyond their current grasp -- opportunities to reduce operating costs, boost bottom-line profitability, and, most important, begin to engage in a meaningful dialogue with customers.

Why Great Companies Never Try to Be the Best at Everything

The Myth of Excellence

In The Deviant's Advantage, Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker demonstrate how ideas create increasingly profitable markets as they move from The Fringe, to the Edge, to the Realm of the Cool, to the Next Big Thing, to Social Convention. The book tracks the products and people haunting the fringes of sex, science, art, language, faith, war and marketing, branding and macro-economics. Tomorrow's commercial success is an obsession in the mind of today's deviant. Las Vegas is a perfect example: it morphed from a bus stop in the desert to a neon 'Sin City' and finally into a family vacation destination. In 1945 a handsome, murderous sociopath called Benny 'Bugsy' Siegel decided to build a luxury gambling oasis in the desert. At the time, Las Vegas was a crossroads in the middle of the desert. Siegel understood the emerging desire for escape in the American psyche - and out of nothing, created what became an enormous gambling haven. Las Vegas has now transformed itself into a gigantic family-oriented theme park, albeit one with slots and roulette wheels. It's become a holiday destination for the entire family, not just a place that fathers sneak off to. Las Vegas moved from the Fringe (Bugsy's original vision), to the Edge (the first hotel), to the Realm of the Cool (where everyone wanted to go), to the Next Big Thing (where everyone went), to Social Convention.

Ryan Mathews

About

Books

Join the club